


Missed Chances

by bewarethemelodrama



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Not Beta Read, Resurrection, fragmented fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-19
Updated: 2012-05-19
Packaged: 2017-11-05 16:04:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/408358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewarethemelodrama/pseuds/bewarethemelodrama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Necessity rather than want. Like everything in their lives.'</p><p>A fragmented story, set after Supernatural Season 5 finale 'Swan Song'. All you need to know is, in this crossover AU, Dean and Faith had a relationship previously. The rest, I'll leave to you to piece together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missed Chances

It's a stand-off.

Two people. Two faces. Staring. Tense.

One voice sounds out. It's hoarse. Choking something back that neither want to think about too much. But it's come to it, so they have to. They do it because it's taken them five years to get to this point anyway. Five years to finally be face to face again, and only because business drove them to it. Necessity rather than want. Like everything in their lives.

 _"Because it comes down to this: We chose it. We chose this path. We chose these lives. We chose another person, other peoples' happiness over our own. We can't sit around and pity ourselves every day when we made that choice. Yeah it hurts like hell, and yeah, that probably won't ever change, but we chose that. You make sacrifices for people you care about. Sometimes you even do it at the expense of people you love. It sounds crazy but there it is._

_You took on a role. A responsibility in a house that isn't yours with a woman you love but aren't in love with. You said it. You chose to be in this place, with a kid who thinks of you as his father but would never call you dad. This is how your life is. You really think you can change that now? You really want to?_

_We've finished the job. So now I'll head out again and you won't see me. Possibly ever. Probably for a while. Might need your help again, so we'll deal with that if it comes."_

The other voice replies, and it sounds tired. It sounds resigned. The face matches it.

_"Neither of us is gonna get what we want here, are we?"_

_"Do we ever?"_

Faith's lip quirks as she replies. Then his lips are pressed against hers.

For the last time.

Dean can't look back as he gets in the Impala and drives back to Lisa.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You want to hate him. You want to scream and curse and expel all that rage that has built in you for all that time. Vent your anger.

But you don't.

Because nothing will change.

The past will still be the same, and he will still have chosen her and the de facto family that came with her. Over you. A wife and son over passion and love. Because that is the way that life is. The way that the world is. Security wins over the unknown almost every time. It's horrible, and it's sad and it's unfair, but it just is. Can't be helped now. Can't be changed. You may be changed by being party to it all, but the world isn't, and God only knows if your change is for the better." Sam paused and touched a finger to Faith's temple, and she could see them. Dean and Lisa and the boy, Ben. They were sat around the coffee table in their living room, playing a board game.

"Stop," she didn't want to beg, would do anything not to beg, but she couldn't stand it. Lucifer playing with the truth to make her suffer. Well damn him, it was working. She knew there was no way out. He'd trapped her. Used Sam's knowledge to lure her there and then used it again to torture her. She hadn't spoken to Giles in over a week, Dean in much more than that. No one was coming to save her. No one knew where she was.

There was no way out.

He pulled his hand away and smoothed back her hair.

"I'm here to help you, Faith. To give you and Dean a chance to be together. It's what you both want."

"Not like this," she whispered. Rope cut into her wrists as it was pulled tighter, more secure. Sam crouched before her and watched. He cupped her face in his hands, so soft, so gentle, so like Sam that Faith felt as if she was going to choke on it.

"Good luck," he planted a kiss on her forehead, feather light and chaste, before the shadow behind her came into her vision. A girl, petite, blonde. She sat down in the chair facing Faith's.

Than the smoke came.

And Faith was gone.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I miss you, don't you miss me?" she ran a hand down his arm. Her form, her touch, so familiar and still so distant. Dean couldn't shake it.

"What about what you said last time, Faith?"

"None of that matters any more. I miss you too much, baby." She stepped closer to him, reaching towards his face. "Please, come with me?"

That was it. Dean knew. Faith wouldn't beg for a man, and Faith would damn well never call him baby.

He knew Faith, and this wasn't her.

"I can't."

"Please?"

She saw the glint of the knife too late. Then it was at her throat, and she was pinned against the wall.

"Get out of her," his voice came out low, gravelly. It was a warning growl. She laughed. Her hand snaked up between them and laid on his chest.

"You wouldn't hurt her," fingers, Faith's fingers, not Faith's, fisted in the lapel of his jacket. "Don't even try and pretend."

"You don't know what I would do." The blade tip touched her throat.

"And you don't even know she's still in here," she bared her neck at him, and arched on the wall, "so what have you got to lose?" Dean's jaw was tensed, every muscle in his body coiled and waiting. He pushed the knife closer and blood beaded on her throat.

"Last chance," he warned, "get the hell out. Because I know that even if she is in there, she'd rather I stopped you riding her body around than let you go, out of fear for her." She was smirking now.

"You know the best thing about this body?" she pushed out suddenly with the hand fisted in his jacket. Dean flew backwards, cracking his wrist on concrete as he slammed to the ground. "It's just so damn strong. I feel invincible in it." She strode over to him and kicked him once, hard, in the chest. Dean felt a rib crack and doubled up.

"It's not..." he choked.

"What?" she asked. She leant down, and her sarcastic smile showed Dean how much she was enjoying this. Like a cat. Mouse down and cowering from the big paws. "What was that, baby?" Dean slashed out with the knife. She, it, wasn't Faith. Her reflexes weren't quite quick enough. He caught the back of her ankle and she toppled down, blood spurting from the wound. Dean rolled, and pinned her to the floor. The position was familiar, had once been intimate. Now it just hurt his ribs and made him sick at heart.

"Not invincible," he finished. Before he had a chance for second thoughts, for regrets, he slammed the blade down, into her chest. The familiar glow, electric light as the demon was dissolved by the magics in the metal. She groaned, and foggy eyes flickered once, twice.

"Nice job," it was Faith. Unmistakably. She swallowed once, tried to breathe. Her lung was filling with blood from a nicked artery. Dean's aim had been true. She shuddered. Dean moved to get off her, give her space to breathe, but she grabbed him and held him in place.

The last thing Faith saw was herself, reflected in watery hazel eyes.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Never thought I'd get here."

"You earned it."

"You sure about that?"

"I am."

Faith touched the jasmine blooming in the courtyard.

"Isn't it kinda corny for me to be meeting you up here, _Angel_?" He smiled from his place by the banister. The moon made his white skin particularly preternatural. It was apt, really.

"You can be wherever you want, Faith. With whoever. You know that."

"But it's not real."

"It's as real as you want it to be."

"Maybe I'm not sure."

"About heaven?"

"Grateful for that. I meant about being dead. Y'know? There are people down there who need my help."

"You've helped plenty. You can rest now. You can just let yourself be happy."

"My part's done in the grand plan, huh?"

"I didn't say that." The voice had changed, and Faith jumped. She stepped back a pace.

No courtyard any more. No night blooming flowers or the sickly sweet scent that came with them. No moonlight. Instead, her penthouse. Her old penthouse. Complete with punchbag and 90's stereo.

And fake Daddy.

He smiled.

"Definitely didn't think I'd see you up here," Faith's voice was cautious. Measured.

"Well now, not all of our time together was murder and plots. You know that." Richard, the Mayor, whatever you called him, fake Daddy was smiling at her. "I'm here with an offer for you. One time only. No backsies." He chuckled, and the sound was so warm and familiar that Faith could almost forget the horrible things he had done. She had done.

Almost.

"And what'll it cost me?"

"It's what it _might_ cost you. We don't have any guarantees."

"And that is?"

"This," he gestured around them, "heaven. Yours. We send you back, you carry on where you left off. But no one can promise you'll get a second invite here when the time comes."

"Sounds like a pretty sucky deal," said Faith. She sat on the edge of her old bed, trailed her fingers softly down the covers. She'd loved these damn bed covers.

"Yes, it does rather. But Lucifer is about to make his move on Dean. And we're fairly confident he'll die without your assistance." The softness was gone. Her fingers were touching something solid, scratchy. A wooden bench. Giles's voice was a welcome relief. He leant against a tall tombstone.

"He's gonna kill him?"

"You know there are worse things than death." She knew. She shuddered.

"Then I suppose I don't got much of a choice, do I?"

"I suppose not."

"Best do your thing," she stood and held out a hand to him, "before I change my mind, G-Man." His eyes glittered behind his glasses and he chuckled.

"Faith," he took her hand between both of his, "poetic. The one thing that he always struggles with."

"Don't get all melodramatic on me here," she grinned, then jumped when she felt a shock in her wrist. The figure in front of her now was small, blonde. Buffy smiled at her.

"Good luck, little sister."

Then Buffy was gone.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was dark and noise like heaven meeting the ground. A rendering of pain from body and back again. There was light and colour and a shriek of bone grinding.

When her eyes opened, the light stung them. The dim glow of the setting sun was a burning pain unlike any she had ever felt, and for a moment, before Faith was even fully capable of comprehensible thought, she was struck with a mortifying fear of the deal she had struck.

What if she had come back as one of _them_? Everything she had fought against, for years, everything that had earned her that brief tenure in heaven, would be redundant in one step.

She closed her eyes against the sun. Her skin was tingling. Singing all over. Energy seeping back through the tissues and fibres that had been returned from dust. Flesh ached and muscles creaked as it was re-wrought.

Her skin tingled, but it didn't smoke. It wasn't burning in the few remaining rays of dusk. She was alive. Really _alive_. Pulsing heart, aching head and bruised knees to prove it.

She lay still for a few moments, coughing, hacking as she remembered how to breathe. As her lungs re-learned how to help her live. Then she opened her eyes. Her eyes struggled to adjust to the dark. To seeing again. Sluggish electrical impulses between brain and flesh caught up, and Faith saw she was in the same dirty jeans and black t-shirt she had died in. She touched the t-shirt. Traced the edge of the hole where the blade had parted fabric then flesh.

She looked up at the purple sky, stars flashing into place like streetlights.

"You brought me back, the least you could do is repair my shirt, G-Man," her voice was croaky. Sore from lack of use. Her vocal chords grated as they grew warm again. A cloud moved and exposed a sliver of moon. "Not that I'm complainin'." She added with a wry smile.

She pushed herself to her knees. Faith steadied herself with one hand and pushed up. Her joints popped and muscles groaned as she stood, and she rolled her neck and shoulders once, before heading out to find out where the hell she was.

And where she was going.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Blood. So much blood.

The walls. The floor. The stairs. Symbols painted with it. Haphazard smears of it. It was everywhere.

Faith prided herself on having a strong stomach. She could deal with most things. She had done horrible things, so how could she dare flinch at them now? But that was it. She had done horrible things. What she was encountering in this Devil's house, they weren't horrible. They were horrific. Like hell risen from below to merge with above.

Which was exactly what it was.

So Faith made a decision. She didn't look. She concentrated on what she had been brought back for. She looked for Dean.

Tracing him hadn't been all that hard. There were plenty of signs to lead the way. And by signs, she of course meant huge fucking omens. End of the world style. So finding him, pretty easy, all things considered. She even had a weapon that was meant to be able to kill the devil. Or at least send him southward again for a few hundred years.

It didn't look like much to her. Some old sword with a bronze coloured blade and a silver handle. She didn't get the same sense of power when she held it that she had with the Slayer scythe. Even the guy who'd given it to her, a man in a dirty trench coat who claimed he was an angel, had looked as though he'd seen better days.

All in all, she wasn't feeling her most confident.

But this wasn't about confidence. It was about Dean and the end of the world and necessity. So she looked away from the mess that Lucifer's demon lackeys had left behind. She looked for Dean.

It was a big house that Lucifer had set up camp in. A sprawling mansion. It had once been impressive, beautiful. Now it was impressive but terrible. Faith edged down hallways, blocking out what she saw and heard, conscious only of movement in the rooms surrounding her. And of Dean. Always Dean.

The room she finally found him in was huge. An old ballroom, complete with sprung wooden floor. She saw Sam first though, or Lucifer. Whatever. What she really saw first was that god-damn, ass ugly, white suit, and with it came the familiar urge to set it on fire and watch it burn.

She grasped the sword tightly behind her, adrenaline flooding her system. She slipped carefully behind a bookcase, movements fluid as she took stock of her surroundings. Of Sam and that awful suit and the huddled pile of brown leather at his feet that could only be Dean.

If it had been Buffy standing behind that bookcase, with the man she loved facing certain death at any moment, Buffy would have had a plan. If it had been Buffy standing there, she would have had back-up. Her trusty Scooby gang, always ready to fight and die for her and her cause.

Faith wasn't Buffy. Faith didn't have a plan, and Faith was alone. Faith dealt with these shortcomings, and this life-threatening situation the same way that she dealt with all the others.

A pause. Brief. View the surroundings. Assess the threat.

Dive in headfirst anyway.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sam knew she was there. Of course.

This could never have been easy.

She lunged for him, swinging the Michael sword towards his sternum. He twisted instantly, swinging one hand to direct a table against the wall at her head. The momentum in the sprung floorboards helped her to dive to the side, narrowly avoiding the flying furniture. She rolled, and pulled a knife from a sheath hung on her belt. She flung it toward his face, Sam's face, though she told herself that she was long over thinking he was still inside the flesh Lucifer had stolen. He flicked a hand, and sent the knife blurring back toward her. Faith used the opportunity to roll over to where Dean lay.

He was bruised and bloody and battered and Faith could barely remember how he looked without it. She shook his shoulder roughly, no time for pre-amble or caution. He groaned and blinked bleary eyes that grew wide when he recognised her. Realised that she was there, alive and breathing, bursting with life. She glanced back at Sam, and her knife was once again in his hand. He was walking toward them, enjoying her panic. She shoved the Michael sword into Dean's hand.

"Use it," she growled, fierce with fear and the desperate urge to protect Dean. "This is your last chance, so _trust me_ and use the sword, Dean."

"How..."

"Do it!"

He staggered to his feet, and lifted the sword. It began to glow, fiery red light shining from the bronze blade and piercingly white light from the silver handle. Sam faltered midstep. Faith didn't hesitate, and dived toward him, tackling him around the waist and dragging him to the floor.

Dean was beside them instantly, staring at his brother with terror but also a steely resolve. The sword shone brighter, and Faith felt sweat beading all over her as the heat of it filled the room.

"You think that will defeat me?" laughed Sam, "A girl and a sword will never be enough to best the Devil. What a disappointment you are, big brother."

"Enough," Faith interjected, "I've met so many variations of you now, I'm bored of the small talk." She meant it too, the First Evil, everything nasty she'd encountered in Sunnydale and after. She was tired to her bones of everything. The only difference was now it was riding around in her friend and much as she tried to ignore it, she didn't like that. Dean gripped the sword tighter.

"They all died too," he whispered, "so a girl and a sword- best option actually." Dean's voice hitched slightly. "I am so sorry, little brother." Sam's – Lucifer's – eyes grew wide. Realisation, fear, a hundred other emotions he had always denied that he had, coming to him a moment too late. Dean brought the sword down, hard, into Sam's chest. There was a roar and an explosion of light. Faith was thrown across the room, slamming into the wall with – in a normal person – bone-breaking force. She coughed, and shielded her eyes against the glare in the middle of the room.

There was a pillar of light surrounding the two brothers. Startling white in the centre with flaming red light encircling it in a whirlwind of snaking swirls. As she watched, the white light focussed down into Sam. He shuddered, and tendrils of silver and black seeped out of him, pulling up from the wound in his chest into the sword. He screamed, and lightning cracked into Dean, throwing him from the pillar. He skidded across the ground, and the light died.

Faith pulled herself up, staring between the two brothers. Sam now lay still, and the blade in his chest had turned black, ribbons of silver circling the otherwise dull metal. Dean was shaking, pushing himself up to his feet. His face was torn between anguish and confusion, and he was staring hard at something over to one side of her.

"Cas?" The explosion had left Faith's ears ringing, so she couldn't help but wonder if she had misheard Dean. She followed his gaze. The guy in the trenchcoat, the one who had given her the sword, was chanting something she didn't understand. At his feet, a portal opened. A swirling mess of colour that looked as if it went down to the depths of the earth. He strode over to Sam, pulled the sword from his chest, and flung it into the portal.

Faith didn't see the portal seal itself, because all she could look at was the blood staining the suit. That goddamn white suit. It was wet with blood, darkening all over. It was just Sam now. What was left of him. A bleeding bag of meat in a tacky suit.

"It's done." The angel's voice was toneless, but all Faith could focus on was blood on white fabric. Dean stepped into her line of vision, leant down, and closed his brother's eyes with a shaky hand. Faith stared at him instead. Pushed away her grief and focussed on him. What she had come there for.

Dean. Always Dean.

He turned to face her, and what little colour was left drained from his face.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's a stand-off.

Two people. Two faces. Staring. Tense.

They had left the mansion. Limped toward a drugstore and a motel, in that order, to patch themselves up. Faith had been unsure if she should try to console him, as he kept a careful distance between them, barely speaking to her at all. Finally Dean had passed out, and after a while, Faith had allowed herself to sleep too. She had woken to him standing over her, staring at her.

Dean stepped toward Faith, hand outstretched. Eyes wide. She couldn't tell if it was shock or terror.

He couldn't either.

"I killed you," his voice was shaky. It knocked Faith. She had expected him to want to talk about Sam. She was out of her comfort zone, so she tried to slip back into it. She went with easy. She tried for blasé.

"Yeah. But G-Man brought me back." Dean's hand covered his mouth for a moment as he fought for composure. Too much for one day. Hell, too much for a lifetime. He brought it away.

"... God?" Faith smirked at the question.

"Don't get all metaphysical on me. Hell if I know that. I meant Giles."

"Oh."

"Hm," she shrugged and stood from the sofa she had dozed off on. She took a careful step back from him. "'Cus 'pparently I got all this other stuff I gotta do before I kick the bucket for the long haul."

"Right. No, I..." It was Dean's turn to step back. To look as uncomfortable as he felt. As she felt. "I'm sorry. I killed you and burned you. Coming back from that..." She cut him off.

"Don't worry about it. Plenty of us out there who've come back from just as bad." she thought of Buffy, and Spike, and Angel, and Sam, and Dean, always Dean. "Coming back from the dead is hardly special at all, anymore."

Saying it didn't hurt. Thinking about it didn't hurt. Faking that talking to him was no big deal, _that_ hurt. She wondered if Sam would come back this time, but couldn't bear to voice it aloud. She didn't think he would. Faith was struggling. The atmosphere in the room suddenly felt oppressive. Too much, too close. She became aware that she was trying desperately to resist the urge to run away.

"You chose to leave heaven." His voice was etched through with shock. Faith shrugged.

"It's over-rated."

He would live. Physically he'd be fine. Mentally he was suffering, but he could deal without her. She knew that. And she blamed it for her desperate urge to run away from him now. As fast and far as she could. Because being this close to him again, well... the feeling was strange. It was love and hate and terror and rage all mixed together. She didn't like it.

She wanted to stop all this. To beg him to come with her. Beg him to leave Lisa and stay with her. But everything was broken now. She had helped him kill his own brother, so it wasn't even a consideration. It made her sad to know that once it was. She scuffed the ground with the toe of her boot and shoved her hands in her jean pockets. She didn't look him in the eye as she broke the silence.

"I should probably head out and start on all that stuff I got brought back for," Dean started at that, and stared at her searchingly, "you're good here, right?"

"This is how you're ending all this?" his voice was low now. Disappointed. Not voicing the anger he felt. The sadness and fear of being alone. Packing it tightly away where no one else could reach it.

"We've said goodbye before. I'm not doing it again." It was true enough. She felt it. She _couldn't_ say goodbye to him again. Not now. Not after everything. Not to him.

"Then what do we say?"

"Nothing."

"There's nothing left to say?"

"Got it in one, cowboy," she turned away from him and walked to the door. To do anything else, to say anything else... well, there were an hundred things that were better left unsaid. She didn't look back when she let herself out.

Dean watched her walk away, every part of him burning to call her back to him. But he was Dean. She was Faith. Another chance missed.

Necessity rather than want.

Like everything in their lives.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fic Fin.


End file.
